WhatsApp And IMessage Volunteer To Share User Data With FBI

WhatsApp, iMessage, and Line all offer limited message content at the legal request of the FBI. (photo: unsplash)

JAKARTA - A leaked Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) document shows user data obtained from two messaging applications WhatsApp and iMessage.

Although these two applications sometimes contain sensitive information that users want to keep confidential, it is easy for the FBI to get that information.

The report obtained from Rolling Stone, the document leaked from the FBI is a government service based on intelligence and domestic security in the United States (US).

Citing Gizmochina, Friday, December 3, the document reveals that Meta's WhatsApp and Apple's iMessage provide the agency with the most information that can be obtained legally from any messaging app.

As per the documents, WhatsApp, iMessage, and Line all offer limited message content at the legal request of the FBI, while these platforms voluntarily offer some data.

However, others such as Signal, Telegram, Threema, Viber, WeChat, and Wickr did not disclose the contents of any messages to the FBI. This limited message is actually only sharing customer records based on court requests. That means the FBI can retrieve the addresses of targets and their contacts if they have a search warrant from the court.

In fact, they can track the source and destination of messages sent from the app as well. That is, if the user has saved the target's contact information, then the user will also be snooped on by the FBI. This is even worse for the iMessage service.

If iMessage users back up their messages on iCloud, the FBI could have access to the actual content of the messages, as the Cupertino-based giant must hand over iCloud encryption keys on a search warrant.